Conventionally, a vehicle navigation apparatus having a handsfree call function is available, such as one disclosed in a patent document 1 described below. The navigation apparatus disclosed in the patent document 1 has a Bluetooth communication function, and is configured to perform a handsfree call with speakers and a microphone in the navigation apparatus through wireless connection to a cellular phone having a Bluetooth communication function.
In the above configuration, which utilizes a short range wireless communication such as a Bluetooth communication or the like, the vehicle navigation apparatus and the cellular phone suffer from a “link loss” due to a too-long distance between the navigation apparatus and the cellular phone or deterioration of communication environment, and a communication link between the two devices is disconnected. On the other hand, a user may operate the navigation apparatus or the cellular phone to disconnect the communication link, intentionally, to cause a disconnection of the communication link between the vehicle navigation apparatus and the cellular phone.
[Patent document] JP-A-2008-278172
As described above, in case that a communication link between a vehicle terminal apparatus (in the example of the patent document 1, the vehicle navigation apparatus) and a portable terminal (in the example of the patent document 1, the cellular phone) is disconnected, there is no disclosure about how to handle the disconnection of the communication link in the patent document 1. In such a case, the disconnection of the communication link may be, for example, uniformly recovered to re-establish the communication link, or may be uniformly left unattended without performing a recovery process of the communication link, in configuration. However, such uniformly configured handling of the disconnection of the communication link may lead to inconvenience of the user, with no user intention reflected to the recovery process.
In view of the above and other problems, a vehicle terminal apparatus that allows an appropriate determination of a recovery process of a communication link, appropriately considering the convenience and the benefit of the user of the apparatus, has long been desired, which is now provided as the present invention.